


It Was NOT Romantic

by scheherezade34



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Canon, No Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-03-03
Updated: 2005-03-03
Packaged: 2018-12-26 20:11:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12066120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scheherezade34/pseuds/scheherezade34
Summary: Brian and Justin DO NOT go on a romantic holiday





	It Was NOT Romantic

**Author's Note:**

> Note from IrishCaelan, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Brian/Justin Fanfiction Archive](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Brian_Justin_Fanfiction_Archive). To preserve the archive, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in September 2017. I posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Brian/Justin Fanfiction Archive collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/bjfic/profile).

Thanks as usual to Beta Beth

* * *

It was NOT romantic.

Yes, we’d been on vacation. Yes, we’d stayed in Paris and Florence. But it was NOT romantic. 

Whatever these fools giggling in front of me may think.

Things had been …. heavy …. for a long time for Justin and me. We needed to get away from my fucking cancer, from loosing everything and having to start a business from scratch, not to mention Justin’s trying to work out where his life was going in fucking Hollywood. We also needed to get away from our supportive, loving, shove-us-back-in-our-old-rut family. To cut the bullshit, we needed a holiday.

So I planned one.

If I’d brought Justin in on the act, we definitely would have had a romantic holiday. The kid has expensive tastes and, yes, a romantic imagination.

So I planned it myself before I told him we were going. 

It just took me a while to choose a destination. 

The trouble with Ibiza, and Pacific Island Club Meds, and idyllic West Indian Islands, is that they have all these adventurous activities laid on to deliver a jolt of adrenalin to the jaded tourist.

And Justin is nothing if not intrepid. Far be it from me to prevent him from relaxing by dangling from a boat-towed parachute, or by providing a tempting SCUBA-coated morsel for sharks while I worked on my suntan beside Hotel Whatever’s inevitable pool. I wouldn’t limit his adventures just because it’d be more fun by the pool with him there as well. Okay, maybe I wouldn’t.

After all, holidays are made for adventures, and I might have been interested in a few indoor adventures of my own. Would have been, of course.

It’s just that, from certain experience I know who teaches parachuting – gorgeous Sven from Sweden. And Carlos from Argentina would be happy to ensure that Justin’s SCUBA harness sat just right. And French Louis would be delighted to guide Justin on the climbing expedition to the top of the jungle-clad waterfall.

I know.

Justin would want to try everything. Nils, Pedro and Jean would fall over their tongues encouraging him to do just that.

Of course, I would have my pick of whoever I wanted, but these fucking resorts are full of Arnes, Ramons and Pierres whose only reason for sticking with the shit job of pandering to the whims of a pack of spoilt fat tourists is so that they can have the pick of whatever talent lands on their beach looking for adventure and ripe for romance.

However many I enjoyed there’d be too many left over trawling for talent.

And Justin is definitely talented, and open and friendly, but also likely to get thoroughly pissed and give me a hard time if he came back and found me fucking my selection in our vacation bed. 

He’d agree that we weren’t monogamous and spend the next week fucking Ivor, Manuel and/or Michel just to prove it. I could collect more tricks to take up the slack, of course, but fucking Justin is better. Of course I’d trick in Ibiza, Club Med or the West Indies or wherever, but there’s no way I wanted to substitute decaf for best Arabica for a major chunk of our vacation. It would really be a waste of good fucking time. What was this holiday really for, anyway?

I could have joined Justin on his adventures, but, if I didn’t enjoy them, Justin’s sympathetic encouragement would infuriate me even more that Hans’ or Julio’s or Robert’s sniggers. 

On the other hand, if I do enjoy something, I like to get into it and do it as well as I can. Then there would have been three more risks: Justin’s being pissed because he thinks I’m far too competitive; Bjorn or Juan or Henri deciding to stop making eyes at Justin and start making them at me (when I’d have to fuck them and then have the same problem with Justin as before); or worst of the lot Justin might remember what that fucking doctor said. 

That fucking doctor is also the problem with the second set of options – the spa resorts. Luxury hotels in the mountains, by lakes or forests might have a lower Erik/Claude/Giuseppe quotient, but they will burble on about well-being, or lifestyles, or rejuvenation or whatever the fuck is their latest spin on “healthy.”

And they’re always so virtuous about it. The fuckers.

Even when they don’t say it they’re saying it. “Give up smoking and climb a mountain before breakfast and don’t enjoy eating anything and save your virginity for marriage and you too can be as perfect and wonderful and healthy as me.” Omit the minor details of lucky genes, unchallenged youth and totally boring brains.

The fuckers. I might eat carefully, but I do enjoy what I do eat, even if Justin and ice cream aren’t involved. Ben might be on a serious diet and workout health regime, but he has the good manners not to consider that earns him some sort of sainthood. Unlike those fucking low-paid health spa shiny-toothed wonders.

They’d never stop reminding us of the wonders of a healthy lifestyle, and Justin would be reminded of what that fucking doctor said the whole time.

If I hadn’t been so pissed I wouldn’t have let anything out to Justin. That apology for a medic caught me when I couldn’t escape. I was supposed to be getting out of that impediment of a cast and he insisted on giving me a full checkup before he got out the cutters. Then when he at last got round to cutting off the fiberglass he accompanied his clips with a lecture on how he expected, now I’d proven myself by pushing my body far too far, training too hard and cycling too far, and further stressing my system by cracking a bone, that I would now calm down, stop panicking and let my body heal. For the next fucking year or so. That my body would take a year or two to recover completely from the trauma of cancer, and cancer treatment, and that for that year or so I should be kind to myself. Fucking lesbianic sentimentality.

The fucker. Anyway, who said I was panicking? And he was going on as though the fracture was deliberate. OK, so I’d broken it through some asinine showing off, but he didn’t know that.

Whatever, I was still so pissed from the enforced lecture when I got home that I said enough to get Justin suspicious of what the doctor had really said. And being a tenacious brat he didn’t give up till he had the whole story. Withholding sex when I had just regained two working arms was totally an unfair tactic.

And he’s never forgotten that “year or so” bit.

At any sort of spa, Justin would always have been reminded of my supposed status. The only thing I can think of that would be more infuriating than Justin’s being considerate and supportive while I tangled myself in parachutes ropes under Torald’s/Francesco’s/Antoine’s amorous eye would be Justin’s being considerate and supportive of my fucking health for a whole vacation.

That left the big cities. Since Ibiza was out of consideration it had to be cities Justin would seriously enjoy. He’d dropped way too many hints (demands?) about Ibiza. He’d become very attached to the idea of going there.

Paris and Florence were places he’d accept as substitutes. They had a few attributes that suited me, too. Justin would know enough to know what we should see in both places, which meant I could refuse point blank to go on any organized tours. Both cities had very good hotels. And they both had lousy weather this time of year so I’d be able to refuse to venture out of our good hotel bedrooms quite often. 

And I was right.

It worked just fine.

Justin had a whale of a time immersing himself in art galleries and museums, and on the way to them we saw enough of the tourist sites to salve his conscience.

I actually found the galleries and museums absorbing, too. It was intriguing looking at a group of works by one painter and checking out the souvenir shop to see which of the fourteen haystacks or thirteen lily ponds was the one being sold in the shop. It was also interesting seeing how the color values and framing of the originals were changed in the souvenirs. I’d expect changes due to economical reproduction methods in the cheaper lines, but there were also shifts between the originals and the top line reproductions on sale. As an advertising man it was fun working out why.

I’ll admit the art itself caught me at times. Rodin sculpted enormous bronze figures. It’s a pity he stuck to straight couples. There was one he did, I can’t remember if it was an original or a copy, just of two hands. Two right hands, hardly touching, but so aware of and in each other’s presence. Then he had to go and pin a religious label on it by calling it “The Cathedral.”

Justin saw me looking at them. “Those hands. I thought of them the very first night. When you were holding Gus.”

“Flattering.” I didn’t really know what to say about that.

“You won’t like the other one you remind me of.” He towed me out and eventually we found ourselves in front of a more than life-sized group of bronze statues of medieval guys. Still Rodin.

“The one on the right with the key.” He was a scrawny old giant carrying an enormous heavy key in strong gnarled hands. He was holding it the way you’d hold a heavy weight bar before you did a standing lift, arms straight down, wrists forward. 

The whole group looked tormented. 

I had no idea what on earth Justin could have seen of me in that gaunt old man.

“’The Burghers of Calais.’ They’re handing over the keys of the city after being defeated by a long siege.” That guy didn’t look defeated really. He looked as though he had suffered, and was enduring what he had to, doing what had to be done.

“You looked like that before you went out the door to give Mel parental rights to Gus. You picked up some papers off your desk, then looked at the door for a second before you headed out. That’s when your lines reminded me.”

Fuck.

“Twenty-twenty hindsight.”

“Nope. I made the association straight away. But it was three days before I found out where you were going and what was in those papers.”

”For a kid you saw too much.”

“I wasn’t a kid.”

“I knew that even then. If you’d been just a kid I could have got rid of you. Sent you back to your mommy.”

He bumped contentedly against my shoulder. “You tried. Lucky for us that didn’t work.”

Luckily for me. Yes.

Most of the time things weren’t so personal. Justin hunted out all his favorite art works in Paris and I got a free expert tour if I felt like asking questions. 

 

And when I got sick of being appreciative, I could always play the bad weather card.

Yes, we walked a lot, but not because we were being romantic. In those old cities it was the best way to get around. Paris and Florence were built when most people walked places. Roads turned into stairs and streets twisted in the weirdest fashion. Walking was best as long as we were avoiding the paid tours. Which we were. 

So, we had a few arguments about my shoes. I was NOT buying trainers just so that we could walk further. And I was NOT experimenting with the joys of foreign public transport. When we’d walked enough or we wanted to go further, taxis were fine. If a trifle hair-raising.

Walking around in Paris and Florence was weird. Neither the French nor the Italians seemed to get uptight at us being around them. Queers being around breeders, I mean. They just took us for granted. That was totally different from that mouth-as-tight-as-a-virgin’s-asshole, do-I-glare-at-you-or-pretend-you-don’t-exist expression I was used to back in the good old US of A.

We didn’t even have any romantic candlelit dinners at wonderful restaurants enjoying the heights of French or Italian cuisine. As far as Justin was concerned, top flight restaurants took too long to deliver the food. They’d give you a menu full of French or Italian adjectives, sit you down with mouthwatering smells wafting all round and expect you to be happy spending three hours over one meal. And he was hungry from walking.

I vetoed American chains and their clones, so most of the time we ended up in small bistros or trattorias. Simple places with not a flower or candelabra in sight. 

If it rained we stayed in the hotel. Being out of season, it rained a lot. Suited me.

That was another thing that wasn’t romantic. The season. Not a blossom in sight. For that matter not even a leaf on a tree. It didn’t bother Justin, though. He commented once that it was great being able to see the bones of the city. I’d looked over at him, checking for signs of Pollyanna fever, but he’d been quite serious. He was perched on a balustrade at the top of some stairs, looking out over Montmatre while he fought off starvation with a croissant. The pale sunlight had caught his hair and I just enjoyed absorbing him while he absorbed the city.

One evening we headed out as usual to check out the night life. We passed a few clubs we’d enjoyed other nights, but for some reason kept on walking, not saying much, immersed in the night. We stopped at a couple of small bars for drinks, but then moved on again. 

Eventually we found ourselves outside our hotel. Back inside, our room seemed too generic. The same bed and fittings could have been anywhere. Still without speaking much we both moved over to the window and opened the full length panels, letting the night in.

Justin went to turn our lights off. The neon lights flashed in, blue, red, blue, red, lighting him against the dark as he came back to me by the window. 

Somehow the different colored lights picked up different things.

Blue – the clean lines of Justin’s face, as clearly chiseled as those statues, filched from the Greeks, we’d seen in some of the galleries.

Red – his lips and tongue.

Blue – the curve of his neck and shoulders.

Red – the flush spreading lower down his throat and chest.

Blue – the sheen of the skin on his arms and legs, pure as marble.

Red – his dick, straining for attention.

Blue – the patterns of hands and limbs.

Red – the bite mark on his shoulder

Blue – the pure mounds of his ass.

Red – his wet crack and hole, ready for me.

Blue – the line of his back arching, the blue shadows of shoulder blades and spine.

Red – the rhythms of the masses of our bodies, moving together

Blinding white when we came, as usual.

 

Florence, from my point of view, was even better than Paris. Who cares about fucking Art. We could stroll from museum to church and just enjoy the perfections of the male form immortalized in beautiful white marble. Justin said it was weird watching me assess the fuckability of guys who’d been dead for 400 years and that what I was enjoying was just a lump of stone, but too bad. I’d have liked to have met quite a few of these models. For one night each, anyway.

As I said it worked well. Just the way I’d planned. But it was NOT romantic. 

The gigglers in front of me back here in Babylon were determined to push us back into our old groove as soon as possible.

It had NOT been romantic.

Justin knew that. He knew my motives were a long way from romantic. I just hoped he remembered it if these fools kept on prattling like this. 

The trouble was, if he did mistakenly decide we’d had a romantic holiday, it would just hurt him twice as much the next time I fucked up.

And I would fuck up. Justin is… well, Justin is Justin. I don’t plan on hurting him. 

But I hate family holiday celebrations with a vengeance. So much so that I don’t always think clearly if I get caught in one. As well, I just don’t see the value of a fucking five-dollar Hallmark card with a sappy sentiment on a scrap of cardboard, or an overpriced red rose that’s been cut too long ago. And sometimes I just don’t get that things are important to Justin before it’s too late.

And that’s just everyday stuff that could happen. That’s not counting the times I head off on some streak that seems reasonable to me at the time but gets Deb and Michael and whoever else pokes their nose in calling me a “self-destructive moron”. I don’t know about the self-destruction, but those times usually seem to end up hurting Justin. I might like to think I’m in control of what I do, but that’s been a recurring pattern in my life. I don’t know that I’ve done anything different so it’ll probably happen again. My fucking up sometime in the future is probably on the cards.

So, Justin’s being persuaded that our trip really was romantic would be bad news. As I said, it’d just hurt him more next time I fucked up.

But here at Babylon our so-called “friends” were having a wonderful time picking over the “romantic” details of our vacation. I’d had enough of their attempted wit. They seemed to be having contest to see who could come up with the most obvious remarks.

Except Ben. Zen Ben was watching and looking benign as usual.

I was looking around to see who would be my trick-du-ten-minutes, when he intervened. He was probably motivated more from some Zen principle of promoting harmony than any wish to rescue me from the sniggering idiots. Not that I needed rescuing, of course, I would have had a trick thoroughly occupied in a few minutes. 

Whatever, Ben suddenly smiled. “Great outfit you’re wearing tonight.”

Yes.

Well.

There was that, too.

Justin HAD been pissed that I’d done the whole vacation decision/organization thing without him. He couldn’t complain about the result, of course, because I’d got that perfect.

He did, however, mutter a lot about managing, domineering control freaks. To shut him up I’d had to let him plan and pay for one whole day in Florence.

And then the little shit wouldn’t tell me what he’d organized. I’d figured it couldn’t be too bad, maybe something cloyingly romantic with “Romeo and Juliet’s balcony,” or a run down the motorway to some desperate tenor in a gondola on a canal in Venice. I figured I should be able to bite my tongue for just one day, and not say anything to infuriate Justin.

All Justin would tell me was to be at the front door of the hotel at 7.00 a.m. and that it didn’t matter what I was wearing. The little brat. Of course it mattered. Seven in the morning and already he’s trying to get me off balance. I figured it was going to be a long day.

Justin just laughed at me, told me that I’d agree with him in the end, and distracted me by shoving me onto the bed and attempting to stay on top of my while he undressed me. It’s good thing it was a wide bed. He kept on being thrown off all over the place. The little fucker actually ripped a button off my shirt, so he had to be punished for that. We never got back to the subject of appropriate dress that night, and when I woke next morning, he was gone.

Whatever, I thought I’d better behave on Justin’s day, even if it did seem to be starting off as a breakfast date. So at seven I was waiting at the door in one of my hottest suits when Justin popped out the door of a limo and beckoned me in. Fuck. The kid looking like he intended wasting money.

Well, we had breakfast – in the limo. Justin, the bossy bottom, insisted that since he was planning the whole day he could also decide what I actually ate. I must admit he’s an efficient little brat. He even thought of toothbrushes. He’s always been anal about cleaning teeth after meals.

So we had the whole fucking breakfast thing while the limo flew down the motorway at speeds that would give American cops apoplexy. And arrived in Milan just as the designer wear shops opened their doors.

Apart from regular eating breaks, Justin spent the whole fucking day choosing clothes for me to try on; having wonderful conferences with head salesmen; and demanding that I parade again in this outfit, then that. 

Any attempt I made to look at clothes for him (after all, he was the one who needed them) was firmly rejected with a “That’s not the deal, today’s MY call.”

After a whole morning of this I was actually starting to enjoy it, enjoying looking great in all the cutting edge fashions, even if Justin was being a bossy bottom.

But after a refueling break for lunch, Justin towed me back to the first shop; had me try on all his favorites; and fucking started buying. I hit the roof. Told him it was fucking ridiculous. Paying for all this for me was a ludicrous attempt at salvaging his pride, just because I’d paid for the vacation. 

Justin glared at me, and snapped straight back, “OK, so the deal’s off. That means I pay for half the vacation.”

“Sure,” I agreed. I’d work out how to get out of this later. 

“Then you’d better bank this right now as a deposit.” The little shit pulled out a checkbook and started writing, “It’s all I’ve got but it’s a start.”

“Justin…”

“Bank it now.”

“Fuck, Justin…”

“Bank it.”

“No.”

“Then as soon as we get back to Pittsburgh I’m getting an apartment of my own and YOU can visit ME whenever you feel like it.”

The fucker meant it. He’d do it too.

That would really suck. I supposed it’s what Justin had had to do with me for the past few years, but I’d hate it. I hadn’t really thought about it like that.

How much I disliked that idea must have shown on my face.

 

“Either bank it or live with the deal.”

I glowered at him.

“So live with it. And that means playing nicely. For the rest of the afternoon you quit stalling and maneuvering. Just shut up and enjoy it and say thank you.”

I scowled some more. 

The sales attendants’ faces could all have had overdone Botox treatments, they were trying so hard not to enjoy our fight.

“The way I have for the past week and a half,” Justin continued meaningfully. 

I can usually think fast on my feet, but I couldn’t see a way out of this. 

Yeah, Justin had been pissed at being left out of the plans. Our agreement that one day would be totally his had mollified him a little, but I knew that the principle of the whole thing still rankled. 

But he hadn’t let that sour our holiday. 

He’d loved both Paris and Florence. If it had been the other way round, I don’t know if I could have resisted making myself miserable just to prove he couldn’t get it right without me. I’m not sure if I wouldn’t have fucked things up just to make a point.

And Justin’s settling down and enjoying everything wasn’t that he was too simple to complicate things. He had been pissed, then he’d deliberately decided not to let that spoil things for us.

Now things looked like they could go really bad really fast. I couldn’t see any alternative.

Seemed like I’d better suck it up.

….. “Thank you,” I muttered.

“Nicely,” he glared. The fucker.

It’s a pity he’s so cute when he’s angry. It gives him an unfair advantage.

“Thank you.” It was supposed to be my smirk, but I have a suspicion it slipped into a lopsided grin. 

So, he spent far too much in the first stop, then dragged me back to the second. I thought about objecting again, but Justin’s scowl was already in place waiting for me, so I settled back into enjoying the designer clothes, attempting to argue with Justin’s choices, and trying to stay cool when Justin took over the bills.

At one place, Justin took his power trip too far, insisting I try on yet another shirt that I knew was the wrong color for me.

“Just try it,” he snapped.

“It’ll make me look terrible,” I explained (well, groused).

“Now!” I could have kept on arguing, but he’s a stubborn ex-twink and the sales attendants were starting to look Botoxed again.

“You’ll see!”

“Yeah,” he purred. That got the Botox faces even tighter.

“See, it ….” I glanced in the mirror, and, surprised, gave a pleased twirl so I could see it from all angles, took a step to see how it looked when I moved.

As I moved I caught sight of Justin’s face in a mirror.

He was watching me, smiling. I recognized that expression. I’d seen that look before, on Lindsay and Deb. On Vic and Rodney, and even on Ben. I hadn’t realized it was possible that anyone could look at me with that same ....

And I suddenly found myself fighting off a meltdown. I couldn’t, not in front of all those fucking Botox overdoses.

I don’t think I showed anything, but just then Justin announced, “I’m hungry. We’ll be back in half an hour.” He shoved me towards the change rooms, “Go on. Hurry up and change.”

By the time we arrived at Justin’s chosen café things were back to normal and we drifted into an argument about whether Justin could order me to eat cream cakes on his day.

Things were quieter after that. We still worked our way through the shops with Justin picking out and paying while I modeled, until we got to our last stop. Justin chose more fucking clothes, eyed one suit regretfully and turned away from it. 

It had looked hot on me, though I wouldn’t have picked it out for myself.

I was relieved Justin was showing some last vestiges of self-preservation. It was a very expensive suit.

It was a pity. It was beautiful.

Maybe…..

Maybe a quiet word, and I could fax later ….

Maybe…

But Justin wouldn’t have forgiven me if I’d maneuvered a way to buy it myself.

Maybe…

“How about we split the cost?” Was that me talking?

Justin looked at me suspiciously. “Fifty/fifty?”

“That wouldn’t be fair. How about the ratio of our incomes – twenty to one?”

“That’d be twenty to me and one to you. You’re putting everything except expenses back into Kinnetik, and I’m rich from Hollywood and Rage.” 

Ha. As if. 

But switching to an argument about our relative disposable incomes would just get Justin more stubborn if he thought he was being cornered. I was actually trying to work out how we could both win here.

“Fuck, Justin, I’m trying to work out a deal here.”

“So, fifty/fifty?”

“How about two to one?”

Justin looked at me. I had an uneasy suspicion he was reading more into this than just sorting out how to pay for a suit.

“Deal!” Yeah, that warm, secure smile of his meant that he felt something significant had happened. Fuck. When I got it wrong next time he’d be more disappointed.

And since I wasn’t sure what had got him so happy, I wouldn’t necessarily know when I was supposed to get whatever it was right.

My worry must have shown on my face, because Justin suddenly laughed at me, “Come on, we’ve got to pay for this, organize how they’re going to get the fit right with you in the US and them in Italy, and get back to Florence. And I’m already hungry.”

That evening, I was beginning to suspect Justin was experimenting with some sort of overload/aversion therapy, trying to put me off ever trying on designer wear again. He had me trying on everything we’d brought back with us again, just to be sure he was happy with them. We’d decided to get fittings done in the US, so we had the whole expensive heap to go through.

Justin grabbed all the pillows and cushions and turned our bed into a throne and lounged back comfortably. He was having a wonderful time being in charge.

The aversion therapy wasn’t working. Justin sprawled on the bed watching me change, telling me to turn this way so he could admire the fit of a pair of pants, or to walk away so he could see the fall of a shirt over my shoulders. He had me hot.

He told me to come nearer, and started checking each choice to see how it felt; drawing a hand down my side, or across my chest, or over my ass, then telling me to change into his next choice.

Trying to get the trousers on was turning into a farce.

Then he smiled. “Come here,” he pulled me down, and kissed me hard. 

And fucked me over the edge of our high old-fashioned bed, with my beautiful new clothes in tangles round my ankles and armpits.

I suppose it had been going to happen since the day began. 

Hell, it had probably been on ever since I sprang the trip on him. And it was no big deal. We’d shared before. 

After all, we both had dicks and we both had prostates.

But this time, the maneuvers, bargains and protestations that usually camouflaged our change of roles would have seemed dishonest somehow.

So I let him fuck me. Let him control how I felt How he had me.

 

It wasn’t raining the next day, so we were back doing the tourist shit. Justin got to be a bossy bottom about what we were seeing and the rest we argued about as usual – when and what to eat, how far I was prepared to walk in dress shoes, which bars to check out just for the fun of it.

Before dinner, as we made our way up to our room, I could see Justin’s face getting more and more mutinous.

Might as well get it over with.

“What?”

“This is supposed to be a break for rest and recreation, right?”

“Yep.”

“So, where’s my recreation? I haven’t been fucked for 40 hours. I could do a lot better than that in Pittsburgh.”

“I seem to remember some spectacular blow jobs in this morning’s shower.”

“Doesn’t count. You haven’t been inside me for forty hours.”

By now his shirt was off. He stomped out of the lift and punched in the code of our door.

“You’d think on a holiday we would get in more…,” he slammed the door behind me and pushed me against it, shoving a kiss into my laughing face.

“Well, if that’s the way you feel…” I spun us round, turned him against the door and pulled his hips towards me, sliding his trousers down in the same movement. He grunted in satisfaction as my fingers found his hole.

Perversely, having him so demanding made me want to slow things down. I kept on working on opening him up, but I asked, “So, it’s our last full day tomorrow, any special plans?”

The glare he gave me over his shoulder told me he knew what I was up to. “Yep, Romeo and Juliet’s balcony and a gondola in Venice.”

“Fuck, Justin,” I started to pull away from him, but he grabbed my wrist to keep my fingers inside him while he grinned broadly.

“Gotcha.”

“You’re in no position to tease.”

“So you stop teasing and start fucking me.”

“Patience, grasshopper. You were saying about tomorrow?”

“Fuck you.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Fuck me!”

I stilled my fingers and waited.

“Fuck you. I want to go back to a few of my favorite places, if that suits you. Then I thought I’d check out some the clothes shops here.” 

“You’re not buying me more!”

“Calm down. I meant for me. It’s not fair you having all those new clothes and me having none.” He wriggled his ass impatiently.

I got back to work. “You’d definitely tarnish my image if you didn’t improve your current wardrobe.”

“But I’m buying.” His glare emphasized his determination. The stubborn ex-twink.

“Spoilsport.”

“And choosing.”

“But you try on things I pick out too.”

He looked suspicious.

“I’ve got to have some of the fun.”

“All right.” He thrust back against me, trying to hurry me along.

“And …, if you find a beautiful expensive suit like mine we split it again.”

Silence.

“It’d be a pity to pass up on a great suit just because you stuck too hard to a principle.” That was sneaky of me. He’s often been pissed at me for being too inflexible.

“Well, maybe. If we find the perfect one.”

I paused, and to distract him while I slid on a condom, offered, “Of course, seventy thirty is easier to calculate than sixty six point six percent and thirty three and a third percent.”

“Bullshit. You never stop pushing, do you?”

That was my cue.

“I hope not,” I chuckled as I shoved inside him.

 

And here we were, back in Pittsburgh, the trip already seeming unreal.

Ben had just admired my outfit. Justin’s artistic sense combined with the Italian salesmen’s experience showed. I looked the best I ever had with clothes on.

“Yeah, Justin bought them for me.”

I was standing in Babylon looking great in expensive clothes chosen and paid for by someone else. 

Someone who’d paid for the clothes and then fucked me. I wasn’t telling them that, but ..

“I feel like a whore,” I said involuntarily.

After a stunned second the morons roared with laughter. 

“After all these years as the Stud of Liberty Avenue and NOW he feels like a whore!” Michael tittered. My best friend.

The rest were as bad. Even Ben thought it was hilarious. That reminded me too much of a time I’d rather forget.

I would have looked around for my next trick, but Justin had already dragged me out onto the dance floor. He was chuckling, too, but his hot dancing overpowered that. We settled down into our regular rhythm, the same the world over.

Later, the music got quieter. Justin looked up at me and asked, “Are you ever going to tell me what that meltdown in Milan was about?”

I considered my options, “You’ll probably be pissed with me.”

“You can deal with that. If it’s something I’m going to get mad about, I’ll probably find out sooner or later.”

There was another point as well. If Justin did start fuming here, I could disappear for a while till he calmed down, without it seeming like I’d walked out on him.

“Well….”

In the dressing room mirror I had seen him smiling as he looked at me, happy that I was pleased with that shirt. Not victorious that he’d been right or was getting his way. Not even happy that it was he who had pleased me, just happy that I was pleased.

I’d seen that look on Lindsay’s face when she was with Gus sometimes; and on Deb’s with Michael. Vic and Rodney, both of them. Hell, I’d seen it on Ben’s face once in a while on his less pompous days when he was looking at Michael.

“It’ll probably sound really stupid.”

“Probably. Who cares?”

Why was I considering saying anything? Maybe because he has a habit of working things out once he starts in on something. At least this way I could control when and where he found out. 

No, it hadn’t been a romantic vacation. But somewhere in the arguments and negotiations and trying to get things right for each other,

“I realized …… I realized you could love me.”

“Oh, that.” Justin grinned, then bumped into me, pushing me into the rhythm of the dance. “Come on, you’re keeping them waiting for the floor show.”


End file.
